Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T12:04:34.671Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

25 - Growing Up in Multilingual Societies: Violations of Linguistic Human Rights in Education

from Part Five - Socialization in Childhood Multilingualism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2022

Anat Stavans
Affiliation:
Beit Berl College, Israel
Ulrike Jessner
Affiliation:
Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck, Austria
Get access

Summary

Children grow up in societies varying on a continuum between monolingualism and multilingualism. Children from Indigenous/Tribal, Minority and Minoritized communities are subjected to the processes of discrimination and stigmatisation of their languages, and glorification of more dominant languages. The processes of development of childhood multilingualism and multilingual socialisation are discussed in the context of multilingual and relatively monolingual societies. Developmental stages and strategies in multilingual socialisation are discussed to show the complexities in the relationship between multilingual orientation of societies and formal educational practices. We discuss how schools as social power instruments perpetuate inequality and discrimination and violate linguistic human rights of children. Social practices and State (and local) policies in education often promote linguistic homogenisation and loss of childhood multilingualism, leading to (linguistic) genocide in education. In conclusion, the chapter reflects on the meaning and implications of growing up in a multilingual world, and how implementation of children’s LHR can develop and maintain/revitalise multilingualism.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bear Nicholas, A. (2009). Reversing language shift through a native-language immersion teacher-training programme in Canada. In Mohanty, A. K., Panda, M., Phillipson, R., & Skutnabb-Kangas, T., eds., Multilingual Education for Social Justice. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, pp. 200–15.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., & Barac, C. (2013). Cognitive effects. In Grosjean, F. & Li, P., eds., The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 192213.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M., & Luk, G. (2012). Bilingualism: Consequences for mind and brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(4), 240–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bujorbarua, P. (2006). Socialisation for Multilingual Awareness: A Study of Assamese Children in Delhi and Assam. MPhil dissertation, Jawaharlal Nehru University.Google Scholar
Cummins, J. (1979). Linguistic interdependence and the educational development of bilingual children. Review of Educational Research, 49(2), 222–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, J. (1984). Bilingualism and Special Education: Issues in Assessment and Pedagogy. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Gogolin, I. (1997). The “monolingual habitus” as the common feature in teaching in the language of the majority in different countries. Per Linguam, 13(2), 3849.Google Scholar
Heller, M. (1999). Linguistic Minorities and Modernity: A Sociolinguistic Ethnography. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Li, W. (2011). Multilinguality, multimodality, and multicompetence: Code- and mode-switching by minority ethnic children in complementary schools. The Modern Language Journal, 95: 307–84.Google Scholar
May, S. (2017). Bilingual education: What the research tells us. In García, O., Lin, A. M. Y., & May, S., eds., Encyclopaedia of Language and Education, 3rd Edition. Cham: Switzerland, pp. 81100.Google Scholar
Mohanty, A. (1994a). Language socialization in a multilingual society: Analysis of some preliminary data. Paper presented in the International Conference on Early Childhood Communication, Bhubaneswar, India.Google Scholar
Mohanty, A. (1994b). Bilingualism in a Multilingual Society: Psycho-social and Pedagogical Implications. Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages.Google Scholar
Mohanty, A. (2006). Multilingualism of the unequals and predicaments of education in India: Mother tongue or other tongue? In García, O., Skutnabb-Kangas, T., & Torres Guzman, M., eds., Imagining Multilingual Schools: Language in Education and Glocalisation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 262–83.Google Scholar
Mohanty, A. (2010). Language, inequality and marginalization: Implications of the double divide in Indian multilingualism. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 205, 131–54.Google Scholar
Mohanty, A. (2014). Growing up in a multilingual society: Stages and strategies in multilingual socialization. Invited lecture, University of Western Ontario, Canada, 20 October.Google Scholar
Mohanty, A. (2017) Multilingualism, education, English and development: Whose development? In Coleman, H., ed., Multilingualism and Development. New Delhi: British Council, pp. 261–80.Google Scholar
Mohanty, A. (2019). The Multilingual Reality: Living with Languages. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Mohanty, A., Panda, S., & Mishra, B. (1999). Language socialization in a multilingual society. In Saraswathi, T. S., ed., Culture, Socialization and Human Development. New Delhi: Sage, pp. 125–44.Google Scholar
Mohanty, A., & Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2013 ). MLE as an economic equaliser in India and Nepal: Mother tongue based multilingual education fights poverty through capability development and identity support. In Henrard, K., ed., The Interrelation between the Right to Identity of Minorities and Their Socio-Economic Participation. Studies in International Minority and Group Rights, Volume 2. Leiden/Boston: Brill/ Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, pp. 159–87.Google Scholar
Ochs, E. (1986). Introduction. In Schieffelin, B. B. & Ochs, E., eds., Language Socialization across Cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 113.Google Scholar
Panda, M., & Mohanty, A. (2014). Language policy in education: Towards multilingual education. In Tripathi, R. C. & Sinha, Y., eds., Psychology, Development and Social Policy in India. New Delhi: Springer, pp. 103–29.Google Scholar
Ryan, C. (2013) Language Use in the United States: 2011 – American Community Survey Reports. Washington, DC: US Department of Commerce: United States Census Bureau.Google Scholar
Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1984) [1981]. Bilingualism or Not: The Education of Minorities. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2000). Linguistic Genocide in Education: Or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? Mahwah/London: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2019a). Series Editor’s preface. In Mohanty, A., The Multilingual Reality: Living with Languages. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, pp. xiiixv.Google Scholar
Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2019b). Freedom of speech denied at the UN, www.tove-skutnabb-kangas.org/en/Freedom-of-speech-denied-at-the-UN.html.Google Scholar
Skutnabb-Kangas, T., & Dunbar, R. (2010). Indigenous Children’s Education as Linguistic Genocide and a Crime against Humanity? A Global View. Gáldu Čála. Journal of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, 1, www.tove-skutnabb-kangas.org/pdf/Indigenous_Children_s_Education_as_Linguistic_Genocide_and_a_Crime_Against_Humanity_A_Global_View_Tove_Skutnabb_Kangas_and_Robert_Dunbar_grusweb_2010_04_22.pdf.Google Scholar
Skutnabb-Kangas, T., & McCarty, T. (2008). Clarification, ideological/epistemological underpinnings and implications of some concepts in bilingual education. In Cummins, J. & Hornberger, N., eds., Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition. Volume 5, Bilingual Education. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 317.Google Scholar
Skutnabb-Kangas, T., Phillipson, R., & Dunbar, R. (2019). Is Nunavut education criminally inadequate? An analysis of current policies for Inuktut and English in education, international and national law, linguistic and cultural genocide and crimes against humanity, www.tunngavik.com/files/2019/04/NuLinguicideReportFINAL.pdf.Google Scholar
Tabouret-Keller, A. (2013) Bilingualism in Europe. In Bhatia, T. K. & Ritchie, W. C., eds., Handbook of Bilingualism and Multilingualism (2nd Ed.). Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 745–69.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×